MEED
Middle East business intelligence platform
title: "MEED" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["mass-media-companies-of-the-united-arab-emirates", "ascential", "magazines-established-in-1957", "business-magazines", "1957-establishments-in-the-united-kingdom", "weekly-magazines", "mass-media-in-dubai"] description: "Middle East business intelligence platform" topic_path: "geography/united-kingdom" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEED" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Middle East business intelligence platform ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox company"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | MEED Ltd |
| logo | MEED logo.jpg |
| type | Private (Ltd) |
| foundation | London, United Kingdom (1957) |
| location | Dubai Media City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates |
| num_employees | 120 (2008) |
| industry | Publishing, new media, business news, events |
| homepage | www.meed.com |
| :: |
| name = MEED Ltd | logo = MEED logo.jpg | type = Private (Ltd) | foundation = London, United Kingdom (1957) | location = Dubai Media City, Dubai, United Arab Emirates | num_employees = 120 (2008) | industry = Publishing, new media, business news, events | homepage = www.meed.com}}
MEED, formerly Middle East Economic Digest, is a media publishing company founded in 1957 focused on economic and business news related to the Middle East. MEED also provides advertising and marketing services.
History
The first issue of Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) was published on 8 March 1957.
MEED's founder was Elizabeth Collard, who later became an adviser to UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson on Middle East affairs and an associate of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan. She also helped to establish the Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding (CAABU).
With two part-time secretarial assistants, MEED was produced on a hand-cranked Ronco printing machine. Every Friday evening, friends and relatives would help staple and stuff envelopes with the 12-page newsletter. Lacking editorial resources, the Middle East Economic Digest was a compilation from newspapers and other reports. Newspapers were flown in weekly from Cairo and Beirut, translated and condensed.
By the time MEED was acquired by Emap in 1986, it had a staff of 20 full-time journalists and 12 researchers and newsroom assistants to cover Middle Eastern business and project news. In 2006 Emap Middle East also acquired business website AME Info.
In May 2002, MEED announced it would launch a trade delegation visit to Iran. MEED stated that top government officials and agencies had participated in the Tehran meetings.
In March 2012, the owning company rebranded as Top Right Group, but retained the Emap name for its magazine's operation, which at the time accounted for around 18% of the group's turnover. In October 2015 Top Right Group announced it was scrapping the Emap brand and would stop producing print editions, and that over the next 12–18 months all titles would become digital-only. In December 2015 Top Right Group rebranded as Ascential, who in January 2017 announced its intention to sell 13 titles including MEED; the 13 "heritage titles" were to be "hived off into a separate business while buyers [were] sought".
On 8 December 2017, MEED was purchased from Ascential in a $17.5m cash deal by GlobalData, the London-listed company formerly known as Progressive Digital Media.
Current business activities
''MEED Magazine''
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/MEED_(magazine_cover).jpg" caption="''MEED'' magazine cover"] ::
MEED publishes a business-to-business magazine for subscribers every Friday featuring news, analysis and commentary, features, and interviews and a weekly special report. Circulation, according to a 2009 audit by ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations UK), was 6'338.
MEED was launched in 1957. When Rafiq Hariri drew up plans to rebuild a war-shattered Lebanon, MEED met the prime minister and asked him to explain them. When Colonel Gaddafi unveiled the first part of his Great Manmade River, MEED took a front-row seat at the ceremony and quizzed the engineers. While US tanks were still rolling towards Baghdad in March 2003, MEED obtained plans from Washington that described how the US was hoping to rebuild the country. Three months before going public, MEED revealed DP World's IPO plans. Abdalla el-Badri announced OPEC's potential move from US dollar to euro pricing to MEED. MEED broke news of Saudi Arabia moving ahead with plans for a Mile-High Tower in Jeddah – which would make it the tallest tower in the world – and Nakheel's plans to create a tower over one kilometre high (then called Nakheel Tower, later announced as Dubai's Harbour Tower) to trump Emaar's Burj Khalifa.
MEED is used as a source of Middle East information by the US and British government's – Energy Information Administration, United States Congress and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The dedication made by Abdullah II of Jordan in 2007 demonstrates MEED's positive contribution to the Middle East for over 50 years. "The celebration of this milestone is a testament to the distinguished insight into the region MEED has provided to its readers for five decades. Your acuity has recorded the region's diversity and potential, not just its challenges and crises."
Editorial staff
- John Bambridge, features and analysis editor
- Richard Thompson, editorial director
- Colin Foreman, news editor
- Andrew Roscoe, power and water editor
- Jennifer Aguinaldo, transport and technologies editor
- Indrajit Sen, oil and gas editor
References
References
- (30 June 2007). "Elizabeth Collard and the birth of MEED".
- (9 May 2002). "MEED Organizing First Trade Mission to Iran".
- (28 January 2007). "Iran ports development to be discussed at MEED conference in Feb.".
- (28 March 2012). "Emap to change name to Top Right Group and split into three". [[The Daily Telegraph]].
- (5 October 2015). "Emap brand to be scrapped as all its titles move digital-only". The Guardian.
- (15 December 2015). "Top Right Group rebrands to Ascential". Fipp.
- (5 January 2017). "Ascential puts Drapers and Nursing Times up for sale in break with trade publishing". The Telegraph.
- (5 January 2017). "Ascential to sell Drapers and Nursing Times as it ditches 'heritage' brands". The Guardian.
- [https://www.digitallook.com/news/news-and-announcements/globaldata-buy-meed-as-ascential-completes-heritage-brand-sales--3019480.html "GlobalData buy MEED as Ascential completes 'heritage brand' sales"]. digitallook.com (8 December 2017). Retrieved on 9 December 2017.
- [http://abcpdfcerts.abc.org.uk/pdf/certificates/14809158.pdf ''ABC (Audit Bureau of Circulations UK)'']{{dead link. (May 2017)
- (4 February 1994). "Hariri's bold vision – MEED".
- (9 August 2002). "Libya through the looking glass – MEED".
- (14 March 2003). "Rebuilding Iraq: The US masterplan". MEED.
- (14 July 2006). "IPO rumours circle DP World – MEED".
- (8 February 2008). "OPEC may switch to euro". [[Reuters]].
- Gaffen, David. (8 February 2008). "OPEC Rattles the Dollar". [[Wall Street Journal]].
- (8 February 2008). "Opec considers switch to euro pricing". MEED.
- (13 February 2008). "Hyder designing skyscraper twice as tall as Burj Dubai". MEED.
- (20 June 2008). "Nakheel increases height of tall tower to 1.4 kilometres". MEED.
- (25 February 2008). "Billionaire Plans To Start Mile-High Building Club". [[Forbes]].
- (30 June 2007). "King Abdullah's letter to MEED".
- [https://www.meed.com/meed-subscriptions/about-us Meet the Editors]
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